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She was now about five miles distant, and as she came driving along, now stem-on, with her square canvas full, and anon sweeping round until she presented one or the other of her broadsides to us, with only her fore-and-aft canvas drawing, we were enabled to get a very good view of her.
Swift was soon aware of the ludicrousness of his experiment, though he never forgave Cousin Dryden for being aware of it also, and the recoil in a nature so intense as his was sudden and violent. He who could not be a poet if he would, angrily resolved that he would not if he could. Full-sail verse was beyond his skill, but he could manage the simpler fore-and-aft rig of Butler's octosyllabics.
Twelve or thirteen hours in the saddle, even in a Christian land and a Christian climate, and on a good horse, is a tiresome journey; but in an oven like Syria, in a ragged spoon of a saddle that slips fore-and-aft, and "thort-ships," and every way, and on a horse that is tired and lame, and yet must be whipped and spurred with hardly a moment's cessation all day long, till the blood comes from his side, and your conscience hurts you every time you strike if you are half a man, it is a journey to be remembered in bitterness of spirit and execrated with emphasis for a liberal division of a man's lifetime.
And now the infantry burst into view, a gloomy, solid column tramp, tramp along the road jägers, with their stiff fore-and-aft shakos, dull-green tunics, and snuffy, red-striped trousers tucked into dusty half-boots. On they came, on, on would they never pass?
The class to which vessels belong is determined chiefly by the number of their masts and by the arrangement and the form of their sails. The distinctive peculiarity of the sloop is, that it has but one mast; and its rig is, nautically speaking, fore-and-aft that is to say, the sails are spread with their surfaces parallel to the sides of the vessel, not stretched upon yards across the vessel.
At first I stood merely looking on; but the breeze freshened and rather headed us, and Hawk issued an order to flatten in the fore-and-aft sails, and to brace up the yards. I flew instinctively to the sheets, and found myself pulling and hauling with the rest. The captain made no remark, nor did he appear even to notice what I had done.
But no sooner were they fairly outside the harbour's mouth than Ned and Manners exchanged the opinion that a smart little weatherly fore-and-aft rigged craft like the Petrel ought to do the distance in considerably less than the time specified; and they forthwith took measures to practically demonstrate the soundness of that opinion, "carrying-on" sail to such a daring extent that even poor Captain Blyth would have remonstrated had he been with them.
Next, the gooseneck of the truss, on which it pivoted, smashed away. Immediately the lifts and lower-topsail sheets parted, and with a fore-and-aft pitch of the ship the spar up-ended and crashed to the deck upon Number Three hatch, destroying that section of the bridge in its fall.
The ship being under fore-and-aft canvas only, this alteration in her course was a disadvantage rather than otherwise, the staysails refusing to stand properly; moreover the high land was now once more close aboard of them on both quarters, rendering the wind light and shifty, in consequence of which the ship lost way perceptibly.
Dysart, who said she knew Duane Mallett, and who was so friendly that a bit of colour warmed Geraldine's pallid cheeks and still remained there when, a few minutes later, she saluted her heavily jewelled hostess and recognised in her the fat fore-and-aft lady of the day before. Mrs.
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